Otaku Rising
by the madman with wings
Summary: Originally posted chapter by chapter to the original ime forum in 1992 by the person only known as J. Daedalus Govoni this was too good a story to let die. Note: it has OCs as the main characters, and this story uses things from more franchises than I can count. Enjoy! P. S. will move rating if need be. P. P. S. I will not be editing the content.
1. Beginning

.LTD Presents  
A Virtual Experience of Epic Proportions

The First Untitled Geek War Epic:

"OTAKU RISING"

Written by

J. Daedalus Govoni

with Contribution and Consulting (Insulting?) from

Mario Di Giacomo

CAST

(In the order I remembered them)

J. Daedalus Govoni...Corinthian  
Paul J. Cummings...Mystic Maxx/MMaxx  
Suzie Simms...Tareah  
Carley Paynting...Kali  
Thomas L. Carney...Wolf  
Nicholas McNab...Zebediah  
Michael R. Frost II...Frosty  
Mike Stewart...Marius  
Mario Di Giacomo...DigiCom/DC/SSSOK

Special Cameo Appearances and Walk-Ons by  
Pete Rose as the One True Lord-God PARTIMGR, PRose

And introducing  
John Patrick O'Hanley as the Silver Falcon

Visuals by the Psychotropic Chain Reaction  
Special Visual Effects by The Sixties Acid Flashback Group  
Lighting by GOD and Son  
Cool TechnoStuff by TooLittleSleep, Unlimited.  
Robot and Cybernetic parts lifted from the Quinn Labs  
Demolitions, Explosions, and Things-That-Go-BOOM by Dr. DAD  
From a kinda original screenplay by J. Daedalus Govoni  
Original Animation by Etch-a-Sketch  
FOLEY editing by Moe, Larry, and Curley  
Sound System by THUD (The audience is now deaf)  
Vehicles provided by GM, Chrysler, and the DMC  
The UPS Truck from HELL created by Vulcan  
The UPS Truck from HELL generously provided by PRose  
Original Score by Mercury Falling Tape Collections  
Stunts by Super Dave Osborne and the Incredible Crash Dummies  
Stunt Driving by Toonces the Driving Cat  
Toonces handled by Jim from Wild Kingdom  
Costuming by TheBigRedSal'sBin  
MechaFashions by Mr. Mario  
Stunt Llamas by Hannibal's House of Expectorating Quadrapeds  
Titles and Credits by This Little Piggie Went to Market  
Catering by Little Sleazer's Pizza  
Green Eggs and Ham proviced in loving memory of Dr. Seuss  
Caffeine provided by JOLT Cola, The Jolt Company, Inc.  
Psilocybin, Ovaltine and FiddleFaddle generously provided  
by Sandoz, Inc.

Published by .EDU bitnet

(c) 1992 by .LTD

DISCLAIMER: All the events and persons portrayed herein are purely  
fictional, despite what THEY might try to tell you. :)

Well, there seems to be a plethora of this "write-yer-own" fan  
fiction stuff around lately, so it's time for myself and crew to jump  
on the bandwagon...

This story is dedicated to anime fans and general science fiction  
fans in general. Some stuff you might recognize, some you might not.  
Some of it only an obscurist like myself might hint at, and some of it  
is original.

Special thanks goes out to Zoner, Gryphon, ReRob and the WDF at  
WPI for providing zaniness and inspiration in my times of writer's  
block (like this summer... yuck). I couldn't have done it without  
your model, guys.

For Paul, Mario, Carley, and Mike for help with editing and coming  
up with some really weird stuff to write about. You guys are really  
whacked. Thanx, gang.

For all the writers whose stuff I enjoyed growing up and tried not  
to steal TOO much of for this story: William Gibson, John DeChancie,  
Robert Heinlein, and most of all, the late Isaac Asimov. We'll all  
miss you, Uncle Isaac.

For all the writers/creators whose stuff we DID rip off... Oops.  
(Innocent-looking shrug)

Thanx to all the DJs at 94.1 WHJY for giving me the proper musical  
state of mind for this madness. Lou, yer a nut. Don't ever change.

And last but by FAR not the least...

For Naomi, the woman I love, for standing by me in all my times of  
need, and for truly believing in me and my writing ability. Baby, you  
are the BEST.

Beginning_ONE

"God does not play dice with the Universe." -Albert Einstein

n  
It's bright and yellow, and Mr. Neutron is here eating a bowl of cereal!  
Mr. Neutron

kill neutron  
You smash Mr. Neutron with a bone-crushing sound!  
Mr. Neutron missed you.  
You hit Mr. Neutron very hard.  
Mr. Neutron missed you.  
You smash Mr. Neutron to smithereens!  
Mr. Neutron missed you.  
You smash Mr. Neutron with a bone-crushing sound!  
Mr. Neutron died.  
get all from corpse  
A spoon: Ok.  
5020 gold pieces: Ok  
dest corpse  
destruct: corpse of Mr. Neutron  
Ok.  
home  
Corinthian's Workroom.  
Ok.  
dest all  
destruct: A spoon  
destruct: a HUGE plasma rifle  
destruct: Bust of Corinthian  
Ok.  
tell darkwalker I'm outta here. *poof*  
Ok.  
quit  
Saving Corinthian.  
Ok.  
Goodbye.

Session ended. ENTER to return to CMS.  
Telnet terminated - Connection closed  
Ready; T=1.24/1.25 11:22:31  
log  
CONNECT= 00:09:49 VIRTCPU= 000:27.26 TOTCPU= 000:28.37  
LOGOFF AT 11:22:44 EST MONDAY 03/02/92

Press enter or clear key to continue

DISCONNECTED RUNNING URIACC  
WELCOME TO THE URI ACCESS MANAGEMENT NETWORK  
VALID SYSTEMS ARE:  
ECL1 FSVM PR1 TELNET KASMS-1

ENTER SYSTEM _

"What the _hell_ is KASMS-1?" Corinthian mumbled to himself. He'd  
never seen that before.  
He looked around the room at the other terminals. He was seated in  
the back of the room to give himself a good vantage point, and to re-  
main relatively undisturbed. Only two other people were here in the  
"Dungeon", or more properly, the basement VMS terminal room in Chaffee  
Building. Busy today. Usually the room was as quiet as a tomb, perfect  
for MUDding undisturbed, or programming if one was so inclined.  
The other occupants, one male one female, seemed engrossed in some  
code they had just printed out of the local SPOOL, CHAF, and were not  
paying any attention to him.  
"Let's see what this is all about."

ENTER SYSTEM kasms-1

SYSTEM INVALID  
VALID SYSTEMS ARE:  
ECL1 FSVM PR1 TELNET KASMS-1

"Since when are you case-sensitive?" Corinthian asked.

ENTER SYSTEM KASMS-1

ENTER CARRIAGE RETURN: RETURN

ENTER ID NUMBER: SCA114  
NEW USER.  
ENTER ORIGINAL PASSWORD: (Like I'm gonna tell you guys. NOT)

Please wait.

Ten minutes ticked by. Cor idly played with a pen, doodling on a  
piece of code-encrypted 132 character printer paper from the SPOOL.

ACCESS TO TOP-LEVEL SYSTEM DENIED  
LINK CLOSED  
WELCOME TO THE URI ACCESS MANAGEMENT NETWORK  
VALID SYSTEMS ARE:  
ECL1 FSVM PR1 TELNET KASMS-1

"There's more than one way to skin a cat, but most are messy," Cor  
said and tried again. "Top-level, eh? Hmmmmm..."

ENTER SYSTEM KASMS-1

ENTER CARRIAGE RETURN: RETURN

ENTER ID NUMBER: AAA101  
AUTHORIZED SYSTEM OPERATOR - AAA101 RECOGNIZED  
ENTER PASSWORD: (Insert creative license here) shirley

Please wait.

PASSWORD ACCEPTED  
KLARION SYSTEM LOADED - STANDBY

WELCOME TO THE KLARION ACCESS SUPERCOMPUTING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM MARK-1  
(c) 1992 by KLARION DATACORP INC. All rights reserved.

_

"Hot damn, I'm in..." Cor grinned evilly. Let's see what I'm in  
TO. He quickly did a DIR and got a long list of technical-looking  
subdirectory headings. One in particular caught his attention:

drx-xxyz-mx1 6510 022992 kdcrecord 1020 KDCField - ROOT

What kind of a crazy directory is THAT supposed to be? he thought.  
He quickly CD'd to it and did another DIR. Another list of tech-  
nical-looking stuff passed before his eyes, including the following  
two files:

-xr-kdc-a 3255 022992 root 74506396  
-xr-kdc-m 651 022992 help 120605

He asked the system for README on the 00INDEX file and came up with  
the following listing for the files:

= KST-Code for the Klarion DataCorp Random Flux  
Field Generator. This file is still in the  
developmental stages and is not approved for  
outputting or printing.  
= User Manual for the Klarion DataCorp Random Flux  
Field Generator in ARChived format.

This is nuts, he thought. I have to get a copy of these files. He  
asked the system for HELP on outputting files. After several minutes  
consideration, he decided to try a default output. He typed the fol-  
lowing:

M_OUTPUT KDCFieldGENprttype KDCFieldGENManual / local

He sat back and waited. He slapped his forehead. WHERE was the  
local output going to? He queried the system for the output site. The  
system said:

OUTPUT LOCAL - BLDG 101

WARNING!  
OUTPUT OF RESTRICTED FILES WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OF CPU  
ACCESS TIME!  
FATAL ACCOUNT BACKLOOP SEQUENCE INITIATED.  
ACCESS PRIVILEGES REVOKED.

CONNECTION CLOSED  
DISCONNECTED  
WELCOME TO THE URI ACCESS MANAGEMENT NETWORK  
VALID SYSTEMS ARE:  
ECL1 FSVM PR1 TELNET

"Ooops...It's gone," Cor said. "Shirley's gonna be pissed." He  
looked around again. The two people in the room had left. He was  
alone. He quickly packed up his bag, stuffing printouts and note-  
books in as fast as possible. He shut off the VT100 terminal and  
left.

Once outside, he paused for a second. Where was building 101? He  
didn't know, but knew where he could find out. He set off for the  
Carlotti Administration Building at a fast clip. They had piles of  
class schedules and directories outside the Registrar's Office with  
campus maps in them. He ducked into the north end of the admin bldg.,  
walked down the hall, and grabbed a directory. Flipping to page 19,  
he looked at the building list. Building 101 was at the northwestern  
corner of campus behind the old Dairy Barn parking lot, adjacent to the  
Central Receiving building.  
He looked at the name for Building 101: Property and Space. Strange  
name for a campus building, but then again, it was a strange campus. He  
scooted back out through the doors at the end of the hall and headed for  
the P & S building to get his output.  
On his way behind Davis Hall, the bells started to chime 12 o'clock  
(or rather, a recording of bells started to play a clavanova), followed  
by the theme music from "Chariots of Fire" (I hate when they do stuff  
like that). He covered his ears and yelped audibly.

Run Through the Jungle, Credence Clearwater Revival

He ran as fast as possible away from the Bell-Tower-from-hell. Once  
behind the library, he felt the pain in his eardrums ease a bit and low-  
ered his hands.  
As he passed the FiGi fraternity house, several brothers were busying  
themselves tipping over a Dodge Horizon in the staff parking lot. One  
looked up, saw him, and belched loudly. He ran on.  
He skirted the Heathman Dormitory, where he once lived so long ago,  
and jogged through the Dairy Barn parking lot. Someone had beaten up  
a VW Beetle and spray-painted grafitti on it in various colors, then  
pushed it into the swamp. Some Oceanography students were attempting a  
salvage operation from an inflatable raft, to no avail. Cor shook his  
head.  
Making his way down the access road behind the Administrative Ser-  
vices Ctr., he saw several state employees sleeping in a campus util-  
ity truck, obviously overworked. Cor looked down the road and saw the  
Central Receiving building. He slowed to a walk. His goal was in  
sight.  
Stepping around the other side of the building, he saw a small 10x10  
shed-like addition to the CR building. This had to be the place, but  
it didn't look very promising.  
It was built out of grey ash-blocks and had a rusted steel door set  
deep into the only visible opening. A faded, blue-on-white sign said  
"Property & Space" and looked about a hundred years old. The door had  
an old rusted handle that looked about to fall off... and a brand new  
padlock on it. Cor scratched his head. It was a _big_ lock. No way  
he was going to pop that monster off it's hasp.  
He bent close and examined the rest of the door. He knocked on it.  
Rusted, but still solid. He gave the handle a tug. Nothing. Hmmm...  
Wait a second. Putting down his backpack, he quickly rummaged through  
it. The door opened out, he noticed. Maybe...  
"A-ha!" he stood up, an eight-inch prybar in his right hand. (You  
mean YOU don't carry one in YOUR bookbag?) He bent down and got close  
to the bottom hinge. Slipping the prybar under the pin, he shoved up-  
wards. It gave a little. He looked around to see if anyone saw him.  
No one. He popped the hinge all the way out, catching it as it came  
free. Cor quickly popped the other two hingepins and inserted the pry-  
bar in the crack of the door. It groaned, but opened slightly. Pull-  
ing it open just far enough, he slipped inside with his bag and closed  
the door behind him.

His eyes adjusting to the gloom of the dimly-lit room, Cor looked  
around. Flicking the light switch next to the door, he got a better  
look around. The place was a mess. Everything looked as if it hadn't  
moved in ages... except for two things. A new-looking table in the  
middle of the mess, and a strange looking box on top of it.  
Moving closer to the box, he saw that it was unlike anything he had  
ever seen. It looked like a large microwave oven, except where the  
controls usually were there were four buttons, two of which were lit.  
There was no front window on the box like a microwave, just flat steel.  
He also noticed that there was a bunch of cables about as big around as  
his wrist snaking out of the side of the box and away to the far wall.  
This is getting weird, he thought to himself.  
He looked at the buttons. They said "RECEIVE", "ONLINE", "RESET",  
and "POWER". The "RECEIVE" and "POWER" buttons were lit. This seemed  
like the ouput device that KASMS-1 refered to. He looked at the door  
of the device. There was a small lever at the top of the door that he  
hadn't noticed before. He pulled it down tentatively and swung the door  
open, looking inside. Inside the device there appeared to be a bound  
text and what looked like a cube. Reaching in, he grabbed the book.  
The cover was jet black and the words "Klarion DataCorp" seemed to dance  
just above the surface. Flipping it open, he saw that it was the manual  
for the KDCFieldGEN that he had "outputted".  
His senses reeled. He hadn't even considered HARD output. He looked  
into the output device again. A small cube, approximately three inches  
per side. The lighting made it hard to tell. He reached in and picked  
it up, rotating it to get a better look. It appeared to be seemless and  
the sides seemed to give slightly under pressure. Looking closely at it  
made his eyes hurt, because the edges of the cube were very hard to fo-  
cus on. One thing was for sure, it was _black_. Not black chrome  
black, not annodized steel black, not light-absorbing black. BLACK.  
Like outer space black. Black hole black. (You get the idea.)  
This is incredible, Cor thought, looking around. He closed the door  
of the outputter (what would _you_ call it?), and tucked the manual in  
his bag. The cube he pocketed in one of the deep pockets of his jean  
jacket. he shut off the light, went back outside, replaced the hinge  
pins and headed for the Memorial Union as nonchalantly as possible.


	2. Applications

Applications_TWO

"Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things  
before breakfast... or madly squeezed a right-hand foot into  
a left-hand shoe."  
-Lewis Carroll

Paul looked up from his terminal in the corner of the Communist  
Lounge as Corinthian walked in and put his bag down on the Multiplexer.  
"Jonny, m'lad, how goes it," Paul asked, barely looking up from his  
screen. A quick glance showed Cor that Paul was reading his TELEC notes  
and talking to Kali online.  
"Not badly, MMaxx," Cor returned, addressing his friend by his long-  
time PARTI name. "Just had the strangest thing happen..." he trailed  
off as he logged into FSVM and checked his reader. 59 notes, most from  
.anime. Some things never change. He started to plod through  
the notes, discarding the boring looking ones. He looked up as Kali  
walked in. "Morning, Carley," he said, though it was after 12.  
"Geek," Kali replied jovially. She proved herself likewise by log-  
ging in next to him.  
"Just get off work?" Cor asked.  
MMaxx reached over and slapped him in the back of the head. DUH.  
"Why, yes, I did," Kali grinned.  
Cor shrugged and pkunzipped his bookbag, reached inside, and extrac-  
ted the KDCFieldGENManual. He looked over the manual more closely than  
before. It was a very nice, bound text. Strange. Poking at the words  
on the cover, he decided that they were illusionary the way they just  
floated there. He opened the cover and flipped to the table of con-  
tents.

Klarion DataCorp Random Flux Field Generator  
PROGRAMMER AND USER MANUAL  
Compiled by Dr. S. Laurence Sheuchster  
(c) Klarion DataCorp Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction...a  
Background...1  
Hypothesis...17  
Theory and Practice...65  
Physical Reality...129  
Application and Utilization...155  
Field Testing...213  
Usage Notation and a Warning...287

Appendix A...304  
Appendix B...312

He flipped throught it randomly. There was a LOT of scientific  
jargon in the "Theory and Practice" section, but the "Application and  
Utilization" part seemed pretty straight forward. He took out a sheet  
of paper and started writing down notes.  
MMaxx looked over at the book, noticing that it looked like some-  
thing Cor could not possibly have been able to pay for. "What's that,  
Jon?" he asked.  
"Something I outputted this morning from a strange system... pretty  
weird stuff."  
"What system?"  
"Something called KASMS-1. It's gone now. I hacked into it and  
outputted a couple of files to a toolshed. The whole system crashed  
me out. Really strange."  
"Ah," MMaxx said, and turned back to his screen.  
Cor scratched his head and looked at his notes. This was going to  
take a little bit of work to figure out.  
"You outputted to a TOOLSHED?" Kali asked incredulously. She worked  
for the Accademic Computer Center part time and knew where all the prin-  
ters on campus were.  
"Well, not really a toolshed. More like an old storage area."  
"Oh, that's different. NOT. What building was this in?" she asked,  
her Aussie accent really coming out.  
"Building 101. Property and Space. It's waaaaaay over on the other  
side of campus," he pulled out the map and showed her.  
"WHAT system was this on?" she prodded.  
"KASMS-1. The Klarion Access Supercomputing Management System. Or  
something like that." Cor shrugged. "It's gone now, though."  
"And you got a hardbound _book_ for output?"  
"Well, it's not exactly _hard_. It's a softcover." He flipped the  
pages at her. She grabbed it away from him and stared at the holographic  
words floating above the surface. She *looked* at it from the side. The  
words looked printed on the cover. She flipped it open to the table of  
contents and glanced at them. "What the _hell_ is a Random Flux Field  
Generator?" she asked.  
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Cor gestured at his notes.  
"The title caught my eye in a subdirectory when I was in KASMS-1. I  
outputted a file called , too. I think it's  
supposed to be a working prototype. If what that book says is true,  
this could be a true technological breakthrough."  
"What did you do with the generator?" MMaxx asked, his curiosity  
piqued.  
"It's right here," Cor said, reaching into his pocket. He withdrew  
his hand and held out the Cube for them to see. They 'Oood'ed and  
'Aaah'ed for a few seconds, marveling at it's blackness. I'm gonna  
try and hook it up to one of the PC's over at Tyler. The book says it's  
multi-system capable, and that MSDOS works just fine. I haven't quite  
figured out how to hook it up, though..." he trailed off.  
"I'll go with you," Kali said. She had been flipping through the  
Manual again.  
"Paul, you coming?" Cor asked MMaxx.  
"Sure, let me send some stuff to the LASER, and I'll be right with  
you. I can pick it up over there."

Soon the three of them sat hunched around an IBM PS/2 in Tyler 108.  
Kali had the manual open, Cor manned the keyboard, and MMaxx looked over  
the stuff he had printed, occasionaly glancing up at the other two.  
"It says here that MSDOS v5.0 is compatable, but that is  
not to be used," Kali said.  
"THAT figures. The 4 series' SUCKED in a major way," Cor quipped.  
"What's it say about hardware hookups?"  
"Hmmmm..." she flipped a few pages. "A standard printer port cable  
hooked up to an external drive port should work. Is there one on the  
back of that PS/2?"  
Cor stood up and looked behind the terminal. There was a port, but  
no extra cables to be seen. "Port, yes. Cable, no." Just then MMaxx  
stood up and walked over to the Programming Assistant's station. Talk-  
ing fast and furiously, he managed to talk the PA out of his direct line  
printer cable and five bucks for being a dufus. Paul walked back over,  
holding up the six foot section of cable.  
"Here ya go," he said, handing it to Cor.  
Cor looked at Kali for a second, and they both laughed. "That was  
beautiful, Paul. Just beautiful," Cor snickered. Kali Milky Way-ed.  
Taking the cable from MMaxx, Cor plugged it into the back of the PS/2  
and held the other end out towards the Cube, which was sitting on the  
table next to his .  
"Where do I plug this in, Kali?" he asked.  
"It doesn't say. Just try sticking it in somewhere in the middle."  
The three of them held their breaths as Cor did so, sticking the  
cable into the side of the Cube. The surface there shimmered (How does  
something that black shimmer? Your guess is as good as mine.) and the  
jack slid in like as if there had been an actual port present.  
Cor looked up at the screen. No error messages. He told DOS that  
the new port was to be the B: drive, and changed to it. Then he crossed  
his fingers and toes and did a DIR/W. Only one file came up:

Volume in drive B: has no name.

KDCFLDGEN EXE

2 file(s) specified. 14E37 bytes free.

"Jesus CHRIST, look at all that free storage!" Cor yelped.  
"It does seem to have a lot of room," Kali understated.  
"Wonder what it does..." MMaxx said.  
"That's odd...it says '2 file(s)'..." Cor remarked. At the B:  
prompt he typed "KDCFLDGEN", and stopped, his finger poised over the  
RETURN key. "Well? Should we see what it does?"  
"Go for it," Kali and MMaxx said in chorus (with five-part harmony :)  
Cor stabbed his finger down on the key and sat back, arms crossed.  
The screen went blank for about a half a minute, and just as Cor, being  
an impatient operator, was about to hit the escape key in the hopes that  
it would do SOMETHING, a really cool graphic rezzed up on the VGA term.  
It looked like a three dimentional (maybe four) image of the Cube, and  
had lots of swirling colors on it's black surfaces, similar to the ones  
you see in an oily puddle. The Cube was slowly rotating at a 45 degree  
angle to the screen. Underneath this was the words "Klarion DataCorp"  
and a small symbol underneath that looked like a shield with a black  
alicorn on it, flames coming from it's nostrils and hooves.  
Cor hit the return and a window opened up with the shield&alicorn  
design in the upper left-hand corner. Paging ahead through the HELP  
menu, they saw that the actual use of the Cube was quite simple, once  
all the TechnoJargon and Bullshittius Maximus was eliminated. (User  
Manuals tend to be written BY supertechnicians FOR supertechnicians.  
Don't believe me? Try to walk your mom through the manual for your VCR.)  
Going back to the main menu, Cor pulled down the file list and saw  
that the other file the DIR referred to was a demonstration/example  
file that was packed into the main file. At the prompt he typed:

KDC GEN demo

The black cube started to fuzz slightly and a faint image appeared  
on the top of it in the center. As the image rezzed in, they saw what  
looked like a chrome sphere about an inch in diameter. When the prompt  
came back on the screen, the sphere looked so real that it cast a shadow  
on the table.  
"Jeez, look at that," Cor said and reached out to touch the image.  
He put a finger against it and pulled his hand back as if he had been  
bitten.  
"What is it?" Kali asked. "Did you get a shock?"  
"No. Just surprised. It's REAL," Cor replied.  
"Shyeah, RIGHT," Paul chimed in.  
Cor tried again and this time touched it with two fingers. It was  
real, all right. He squeezed it slightly. No give at all. "It seems  
to be just what it looks like, guys. A silver ball."  
Kali reached for it and gave it a little nudge. It rolled off of the  
Cube and hit the table, making a solid sounding *whunk*. Then a funny  
thing happened. As soon as it left contact with the Cube, the sphere  
started to de-rez and break up. In seconds it was gone.  
"Hmmmmm..." MMaxx said thoughtfully (?), "As soon as it lost contact,  
it vanished."  
Cor gave him a "DUH" look and turned back to the screen. Under the  
heading of INPUT_OPTIONS, he had noticed that there was an entry for  
HANDSCANNER. "I think I know how we can make this thing portable," he  
said, and went over to the PA, who was reading a catalog.  
"My GOD! Look at the size of that CAT!" Cor yelled and pointed out  
the window at the back of the room. As the PA jumped up and ran to  
look, Cor snatched the catalog and walked back over to Kali and MMaxx.  
"That guy is SUCH a dufus," Cor said and began flipping through the  
catalog for "Zaphod's House of Electronic Goodies" that he had just  
liberated. He flipped open to the section on Hewlett Packard computer  
equipment and calculators and lay the catalog down on the table.  
"Watch this guys," Cor said and punched in HANDSCANNER at the KDC  
prompt. An IBM styled hand scanner rezzed in next to the Cube with a  
cable connecting it to it. Cor picked up the scanner and scanned page  
37 of the catalog with it. A new window opened up on the PS/2 screen  
with the scanned image. Cor put down the scanner.  
Typing fast and furiously, Cor trimmed the image down to a single  
entry from the page: The HP950 Palmtop and the appropriate optional  
external drive cables. Cor saved the image into what looked for all  
intents and purposes was a .gif file and got back to the main system  
prompt.  
MMaxx had been looking at the entry in the catalog that Cor had scan-  
ned. Passing it to Kali, he said, "Do you think that will work, Jon?"  
(Paul never DID like to call him Corinthian, God knows why.) Cor shrug-  
Cor shrugged. "Only one way to find out." He did a DISCARD on the  
scanner, which promptly de-rezzed out of existence.  
Kali put down the catalog and whistled. "This thing's legit?" she  
asked of the HP950.  
Cor nodded as he entered "GEN " at the prompt, and waited.  
He didn't know if this would work. The catalog didn't go into schematics  
or electrical capabilities. He crossed his fingers. An image started to  
appear on top of the Cube of a large, wedge-shaped object with a myriad  
of buttons on it and a three-inch diameter LCD screen. A rolled up ca-  
ble appeared on the table next to the Cube, with one end attatched to the  
wedge-shaped object.  
"Hot damn," Cor said as he gently touched the HP950. It was in es-  
sence a portable computer. But it's capabilities blew the PS/2 away.  
This little baby was a true hand-held computer. Not only was it port-  
able, it had 5 meg of RAM and could run an external drive on it's own  
power. Will a little creative programming, it was perfect for this ap-  
lication. The catalog listed it's price at just under $4000. Cor  
grinned evilly. This could be a lot of fun.  
He unrolled the cable and plugged it into the other side of th Cube.  
Booting up the HP950, he downloaded all the system files from the IBM  
through the Cube to it. Now they had a portable CPU running on MSDOS  
v5.0 to play with wherever they wanted. He told the HP that the Cube  
was drive C: and shut down the IBM. He handed back the station card to  
the PA, who was pouting about losing his magazine, packed up his stuff  
as Kali and MMaxx put on their jackets, and the three of them headed  
out for the Onion, big smiles on their faces.

Applications_TWO

"Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things  
before breakfast... or madly squeezed a right-hand foot into  
a left-hand shoe."  
-Lewis Carroll

Paul looked up from his terminal in the corner of the Communist  
Lounge as Corinthian walked in and put his bag down on the Multiplexer.  
"Jonny, m'lad, how goes it," Paul asked, barely looking up from his  
screen. A quick glance showed Cor that Paul was reading his TELEC notes  
and talking to Kali online.  
"Not badly, MMaxx," Cor returned, addressing his friend by his long-  
time PARTI name. "Just had the strangest thing happen..." he trailed  
off as he logged into FSVM and checked his reader. 59 notes, most from  
.anime. Some things never change. He started to plod through  
the notes, discarding the boring looking ones. He looked up as Kali  
walked in. "Morning, Carley," he said, though it was after 12.  
"Geek," Kali replied jovially. She proved herself likewise by log-  
ging in next to him.  
"Just get off work?" Cor asked.  
MMaxx reached over and slapped him in the back of the head. DUH.  
"Why, yes, I did," Kali grinned.  
Cor shrugged and pkunzipped his bookbag, reached inside, and extrac-  
ted the KDCFieldGENManual. He looked over the manual more closely than  
before. It was a very nice, bound text. Strange. Poking at the words  
on the cover, he decided that they were illusionary the way they just  
floated there. He opened the cover and flipped to the table of con-  
tents.

Klarion DataCorp Random Flux Field Generator  
PROGRAMMER AND USER MANUAL  
Compiled by Dr. S. Laurence Sheuchster  
(c) Klarion DataCorp Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction...a  
Background...1  
Hypothesis...17  
Theory and Practice...65  
Physical Reality...129  
Application and Utilization...155  
Field Testing...213  
Usage Notation and a Warning...287

Appendix A...304  
Appendix B...312

He flipped throught it randomly. There was a LOT of scientific  
jargon in the "Theory and Practice" section, but the "Application and  
Utilization" part seemed pretty straight forward. He took out a sheet  
of paper and started writing down notes.  
MMaxx looked over at the book, noticing that it looked like some-  
thing Cor could not possibly have been able to pay for. "What's that,  
Jon?" he asked.  
"Something I outputted this morning from a strange system... pretty  
weird stuff."  
"What system?"  
"Something called KASMS-1. It's gone now. I hacked into it and  
outputted a couple of files to a toolshed. The whole system crashed  
me out. Really strange."  
"Ah," MMaxx said, and turned back to his screen.  
Cor scratched his head and looked at his notes. This was going to  
take a little bit of work to figure out.  
"You outputted to a TOOLSHED?" Kali asked incredulously. She worked  
for the Accademic Computer Center part time and knew where all the prin-  
ters on campus were.  
"Well, not really a toolshed. More like an old storage area."  
"Oh, that's different. NOT. What building was this in?" she asked,  
her Aussie accent really coming out.  
"Building 101. Property and Space. It's waaaaaay over on the other  
side of campus," he pulled out the map and showed her.  
"WHAT system was this on?" she prodded.  
"KASMS-1. The Klarion Access Supercomputing Management System. Or  
something like that." Cor shrugged. "It's gone now, though."  
"And you got a hardbound _book_ for output?"  
"Well, it's not exactly _hard_. It's a softcover." He flipped the  
pages at her. She grabbed it away from him and stared at the holographic  
words floating above the surface. She *looked* at it from the side. The  
words looked printed on the cover. She flipped it open to the table of  
contents and glanced at them. "What the _hell_ is a Random Flux Field  
Generator?" she asked.  
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Cor gestured at his notes.  
"The title caught my eye in a subdirectory when I was in KASMS-1. I  
outputted a file called , too. I think it's  
supposed to be a working prototype. If what that book says is true,  
this could be a true technological breakthrough."  
"What did you do with the generator?" MMaxx asked, his curiosity  
piqued.  
"It's right here," Cor said, reaching into his pocket. He withdrew  
his hand and held out the Cube for them to see. They 'Oood'ed and  
'Aaah'ed for a few seconds, marveling at it's blackness. I'm gonna  
try and hook it up to one of the PC's over at Tyler. The book says it's  
multi-system capable, and that MSDOS works just fine. I haven't quite  
figured out how to hook it up, though..." he trailed off.  
"I'll go with you," Kali said. She had been flipping through the  
Manual again.  
"Paul, you coming?" Cor asked MMaxx.  
"Sure, let me send some stuff to the LASER, and I'll be right with  
you. I can pick it up over there."

Soon the three of them sat hunched around an IBM PS/2 in Tyler 108.  
Kali had the manual open, Cor manned the keyboard, and MMaxx looked over  
the stuff he had printed, occasionaly glancing up at the other two.  
"It says here that MSDOS v5.0 is compatable, but that is  
not to be used," Kali said.  
"THAT figures. The 4 series' SUCKED in a major way," Cor quipped.  
"What's it say about hardware hookups?"  
"Hmmmm..." she flipped a few pages. "A standard printer port cable  
hooked up to an external drive port should work. Is there one on the  
back of that PS/2?"  
Cor stood up and looked behind the terminal. There was a port, but  
no extra cables to be seen. "Port, yes. Cable, no." Just then MMaxx  
stood up and walked over to the Programming Assistant's station. Talk-  
ing fast and furiously, he managed to talk the PA out of his direct line  
printer cable and five bucks for being a dufus. Paul walked back over,  
holding up the six foot section of cable.  
"Here ya go," he said, handing it to Cor.  
Cor looked at Kali for a second, and they both laughed. "That was  
beautiful, Paul. Just beautiful," Cor snickered. Kali Milky Way-ed.  
Taking the cable from MMaxx, Cor plugged it into the back of the PS/2  
and held the other end out towards the Cube, which was sitting on the  
table next to his .  
"Where do I plug this in, Kali?" he asked.  
"It doesn't say. Just try sticking it in somewhere in the middle."  
The three of them held their breaths as Cor did so, sticking the  
cable into the side of the Cube. The surface there shimmered (How does  
something that black shimmer? Your guess is as good as mine.) and the  
jack slid in like as if there had been an actual port present.  
Cor looked up at the screen. No error messages. He told DOS that  
the new port was to be the B: drive, and changed to it. Then he crossed  
his fingers and toes and did a DIR/W. Only one file came up:

Volume in drive B: has no name.

KDCFLDGEN EXE

2 file(s) specified. 14E37 bytes free.

"Jesus CHRIST, look at all that free storage!" Cor yelped.  
"It does seem to have a lot of room," Kali understated.  
"Wonder what it does..." MMaxx said.  
"That's odd...it says '2 file(s)'..." Cor remarked. At the B:  
prompt he typed "KDCFLDGEN", and stopped, his finger poised over the  
RETURN key. "Well? Should we see what it does?"  
"Go for it," Kali and MMaxx said in chorus (with five-part harmony :)  
Cor stabbed his finger down on the key and sat back, arms crossed.  
The screen went blank for about a half a minute, and just as Cor, being  
an impatient operator, was about to hit the escape key in the hopes that  
it would do SOMETHING, a really cool graphic rezzed up on the VGA term.  
It looked like a three dimentional (maybe four) image of the Cube, and  
had lots of swirling colors on it's black surfaces, similar to the ones  
you see in an oily puddle. The Cube was slowly rotating at a 45 degree  
angle to the screen. Underneath this was the words "Klarion DataCorp"  
and a small symbol underneath that looked like a shield with a black  
alicorn on it, flames coming from it's nostrils and hooves.  
Cor hit the return and a window opened up with the shield&alicorn  
design in the upper left-hand corner. Paging ahead through the HELP  
menu, they saw that the actual use of the Cube was quite simple, once  
all the TechnoJargon and Bullshittius Maximus was eliminated. (User  
Manuals tend to be written BY supertechnicians FOR supertechnicians.  
Don't believe me? Try to walk your mom through the manual for your VCR.)  
Going back to the main menu, Cor pulled down the file list and saw  
that the other file the DIR referred to was a demonstration/example  
file that was packed into the main file. At the prompt he typed:

KDC GEN demo

The black cube started to fuzz slightly and a faint image appeared  
on the top of it in the center. As the image rezzed in, they saw what  
looked like a chrome sphere about an inch in diameter. When the prompt  
came back on the screen, the sphere looked so real that it cast a shadow  
on the table.  
"Jeez, look at that," Cor said and reached out to touch the image.  
He put a finger against it and pulled his hand back as if he had been  
bitten.  
"What is it?" Kali asked. "Did you get a shock?"  
"No. Just surprised. It's REAL," Cor replied.  
"Shyeah, RIGHT," Paul chimed in.  
Cor tried again and this time touched it with two fingers. It was  
real, all right. He squeezed it slightly. No give at all. "It seems  
to be just what it looks like, guys. A silver ball."  
Kali reached for it and gave it a little nudge. It rolled off of the  
Cube and hit the table, making a solid sounding *whunk*. Then a funny  
thing happened. As soon as it left contact with the Cube, the sphere  
started to de-rez and break up. In seconds it was gone.  
"Hmmmmm..." MMaxx said thoughtfully (?), "As soon as it lost contact,  
it vanished."  
Cor gave him a "DUH" look and turned back to the screen. Under the  
heading of INPUT_OPTIONS, he had noticed that there was an entry for  
HANDSCANNER. "I think I know how we can make this thing portable," he  
said, and went over to the PA, who was reading a catalog.  
"My GOD! Look at the size of that CAT!" Cor yelled and pointed out  
the window at the back of the room. As the PA jumped up and ran to  
look, Cor snatched the catalog and walked back over to Kali and MMaxx.  
"That guy is SUCH a dufus," Cor said and began flipping through the  
catalog for "Zaphod's House of Electronic Goodies" that he had just  
liberated. He flipped open to the section on Hewlett Packard computer  
equipment and calculators and lay the catalog down on the table.  
"Watch this guys," Cor said and punched in HANDSCANNER at the KDC  
prompt. An IBM styled hand scanner rezzed in next to the Cube with a  
cable connecting it to it. Cor picked up the scanner and scanned page  
37 of the catalog with it. A new window opened up on the PS/2 screen  
with the scanned image. Cor put down the scanner.  
Typing fast and furiously, Cor trimmed the image down to a single  
entry from the page: The HP950 Palmtop and the appropriate optional  
external drive cables. Cor saved the image into what looked for all  
intents and purposes was a .gif file and got back to the main system  
prompt.  
MMaxx had been looking at the entry in the catalog that Cor had scan-  
ned. Passing it to Kali, he said, "Do you think that will work, Jon?"  
(Paul never DID like to call him Corinthian, God knows why.) Cor shrug-  
Cor shrugged. "Only one way to find out." He did a DISCARD on the  
scanner, which promptly de-rezzed out of existence.  
Kali put down the catalog and whistled. "This thing's legit?" she  
asked of the HP950.  
Cor nodded as he entered "GEN " at the prompt, and waited.  
He didn't know if this would work. The catalog didn't go into schematics  
or electrical capabilities. He crossed his fingers. An image started to  
appear on top of the Cube of a large, wedge-shaped object with a myriad  
of buttons on it and a three-inch diameter LCD screen. A rolled up ca-  
ble appeared on the table next to the Cube, with one end attatched to the  
wedge-shaped object.  
"Hot damn," Cor said as he gently touched the HP950. It was in es-  
sence a portable computer. But it's capabilities blew the PS/2 away.  
This little baby was a true hand-held computer. Not only was it port-  
able, it had 5 meg of RAM and could run an external drive on it's own  
power. Will a little creative programming, it was perfect for this ap-  
lication. The catalog listed it's price at just under $4000. Cor  
grinned evilly. This could be a lot of fun.  
He unrolled the cable and plugged it into the other side of th Cube.  
Booting up the HP950, he downloaded all the system files from the IBM  
through the Cube to it. Now they had a portable CPU running on MSDOS  
v5.0 to play with wherever they wanted. He told the HP that the Cube  
was drive C: and shut down the IBM. He handed back the station card to  
the PA, who was pouting about losing his magazine, packed up his stuff  
as Kali and MMaxx put on their jackets, and the three of them headed  
out for the Onion, big smiles on their faces.


End file.
